Building a New Imperial State: The Strategic Foundations of Separation of Powers in America

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 668-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEAN GAILMARD
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Institutional Choice ◽  
Rent Extraction ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Distinct Factor ◽  
Imperial State

Separation of powers existed in the British Empire of North America long before the U.S. Constitution of 1789, yet little is known about the strategic foundations of this institutional choice. In this article, I argue that separation of powers helps an imperial crown mitigate an agency problem with its colonial governor. Governors may extract more rents from colonial settlers than the imperial crown prefers. This lowers the Crown’s rents and inhibits economic development by settlers. Separation of powers within colonies allows settlers to restrain the governor’s rent extraction. If returns to settler investment are moderately high, this restraint is necessary for colonial economic development and ultimately benefits the Crown. Historical evidence from the American colonies and the first British Empire is consistent with the model. This article highlights the role of agency problems as a distinct factor in New World institutional development, and in a sovereign’s incentives to create liberal institutions.

Networks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Conway
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Economic Potential ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Contractual Arrangements ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
The North ◽  
Official Policy ◽  
European Engagement ◽  
Private Actors

This chapter turns to the role of private actors in facilitating the various forms of European engagement with the British Empire. Long-distance and transnational networks undoubtedly played a key role, sometimes underpinning types of continental European involvement of which ministers and officials in London, and state servants in imperial sites, disapproved, and wished to discourage or even stop. But private actors did not always work to undermine the efforts of British governments to preserve an exclusionary empire. Their independent activities could dovetail neatly with official policy. Landowners and employers in the colonies wanted to promote settlement to secure more tenants and more labour. British governments wanted to see the North American colonies settled so that their economic potential could be realized and their security improved. On some occasions, private actors even worked directly with state officials to facilitate foreign participation in the empire through contractual arrangements to secure settlers or soldiers.

Food Surpluses and Deficits in the American Colonies, 1768–1772

1971 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Klingaman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich

Scholars are gradually piecing together the puzzle of the economic development of the American colonies through quantitative studies designed to clarify and measure economic variables having theoretical relevance for the wider process of economic growth and development. Recently, researchers such as Jones, Land, Shepherd, Walton, and Thomas have been helping others to build a base that one day may permit the writing of a comprehensive study of the process of early American economic development which may even include reliable estimates of economic growth and living standards. The data problems for the colonial period of American economic history are severe, and much of the research has tended to concentrate on the important role of international trade, where the extant data sources are capable of yielding rich lodes of quantitative information. Customs 16/1, entitled the Ledger of Imports and Exports for America, 1768–1772, has been the most valuable source of trade data, since it is the only comprehensive document which shows the trade of the American colonies with all parts of the world and not just with the British Isles. Still yet to be mined are the rich sources of data buried in the naval office lists for the various colonies. These sources also give the trade of each colony with all parts of the world although they are more tedious to work with than the better collated Customs 16/1.

Trevor Burnard, Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British America, 1650–1820

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-310
Author(s):  
Carla Gardina Pestana (review) ◽  
Pieter Emmer (review) ◽  
James Robertson (review) ◽  
Trevor Burnard (response)
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
White Men ◽  
Racial Hatred ◽  
British America ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact ◽  
University Of Chicago Press ◽  
Plantation System

This book forum focuses on Trevor Burnard’s book, Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British America, 1650–1820 (University of Chicago Press, 2015). In his book, Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism, but rather out of economic logic. While plantations required racial divisions to exist, their successes were always measured in gold, rather than skin or blood. Burnard argues that the best example of plantations functioning as intended is not those found in the fractious and poor North American colonies, but those in their booming and integrated commercial hub, Jamaica. Ranging over nearly two centuries, from Guyana to the Chesapeake, the book provides many new insights and offers a revisionary interpretation of the connection between slavery and the American Revolution. The three reviewers in general praise the empirical research that underpins the book but challenge some of the conclusions. They also draw attention to a few points that, in their opinion, the author underemphasized or where he could have expanded his argument, for instance the role of support from the British Empire to the plantation system and the role of religion in shaping attitudes to slavery and the plantation system. In his response, Burnard argues against some of the criticism, such as the impact of the fear of slave revolts. In particular, Burnard stresses that his understanding of slavery in the colonial period of American history is that of an outsider to American politics. As such, he argues, his book does not speak to contemporary concerns about rising evidence of racial hatred.

Governance through Documents: The Board of Trade, Its Archive, and the Imperial Constitution of the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-290
Author(s):  
Asheesh Kapur Siddique
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
British Atlantic ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
British Atlantic World ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
British State

AbstractThis article examines the role of documents, their circulation, and their archivization in the enactment of the imperial constitution of the British Empire in the Atlantic world during the long eighteenth century. It focuses on the Board of Trade's dispatch of “Instructions” and “Queries” to governors in the American colonies, arguing that it was through the circulation of these documents and the use of archives that the board sought to enforce constitutional norms of bureaucratic conduct and the authority of central institutions of imperial administration. In the absence of a singular, codified written constitution, the British state relied upon a variety of different kinds of documents to forge the imperial Atlantic into a governed space. The article concludes by pointing to the continuing centrality of documents and archives to the bureaucratic manifestation of the imperial constitution in the immediate aftermath of the American Revolution.

Sociostructural Aspects of Socio-Economic Development:The role of Economic approach

2014 ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
M. Shabanova
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Socio Economic Development

The author discusses the importance of studying socio-structural factors of socio-economic development through a broader application of the economic approach. The resources of status positions of economic agents are in the spotlight. A possible platform for interdisciplinary interactions is proposed which allows to increase the contribution of both economics and sociology in improving governance at all levels.

Moral Factor of Social and Economic Progress

2007 ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Bogomolov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Moral Atmosphere ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Moral Factor

The article reveals the influence of the spiritual and moral atmosphere in the society on economic development. The emphasis is put especially on the role of social confidence and social justice. The author indicates also some measures on improving the worsening moral situation in Russia.

Economic Development of Bangladesh: The Role of IBBL

IIUC Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 323-334
Author(s):  
Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Nicholas McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Rural Economy ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Housing Sector

This paper presents the role of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) to the recent economic development in Bangladesh. The study analyses published texts, articles, websites and annual report of this bank through a content analysis. Key findings of this study manifest the contribution of this bank in different areas of economic development in Bangladesh like generating employment, earning foreign remittance, strengthening rural economy, promoting ecology and green banking, boosting industrialization, developing the SMEs, assisting in foreign trade (import-export), developing the housing sector etc. This study also identifies IBBL’s significant contribution to the national exchequer. This paper contributes to the field of economic development of Bangladesh and the role of IBBL behind it and fills the gap of literature in this specific area.IIUC Studies Vol.9 December 2012: 323-334

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